Judicial Tyranny: From Sanctuary Cities and States to a ‘Sanctuary Nation’

Written by John Biver

It all started with “sanctuary cities.” Back in September, thanks to Republican in Name Only, Governor Bruce Rauner, Illinois became a “sanctuary state.” In this, Rauner is on the same page as Chicago’s Leftist mayor: state and local law enforcement are now prevented from making an arrest based solely on immigration status.

The Democratic Party’s goal of importing more future Democratic Party voters from other countries took yet another step forward when a federal judge ruled that the country is a “sanctuary nation.”

Federal law no longer matters? We are ruled by the feelings of a Leftist federal judge?

Of the handful of prominent promises, candidate Donald Trump pledged to crack down on cities that refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement when it comes to immigration law. The Trump Administration’s first salvo has been to begin withholding grant funds from sanctuary cities. The predicable blowback has come from not only Leftist politicians but Leftist judges as well.

Writing at the Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz recently brought readers up to speed on the issue. Thus far, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has bowed to federal court rulings even though the law is clear that the power of immigration policy resides with the president. Horowitz writes that it is time for the Trump Administration to ignore the “sanctuary courts.”

Horowitz sums up one of the more ridiculous court judgments in recent years (and that is saying something):

The “debate” over sanctuary cities is over, and the Left has won. Unelected federal judges, who had no jurisdiction over immigration for 200 years, are declaring sanctuary cities the law of the land. Now a Chicago judge is saying that his ruling against cutting off grants to sanctuary cities is binding on the entire nation.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber “issued a preliminary injunction against the Department of Justice’s decision to cut off law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities.”

“Even more absurd,” Horowitz writes, the judge “applied his ‘veto’ of the policy to the entire nation.”

Judge Leinenweber admitted that a nationwide injunction was an extraordinary measure, but said that nonetheless, “[T]his state of affairs flies in the face of the rule of law and the role of the courts to ensure the rule of law is enforced.”

“Rule of law?! Are you kidding me?!,” Horowitz writes, “The law is now unconstitutional.”

Horowitz then gets to what many opponents of sanctuary cities see as the heart of the matter:

Attorney General Sessions is following the law, while Chicago is disobeying the law. In today’s judicial autocracy, that means Chicago is right and Sessions is wrong.

Then Horowitz provides a bit of remedial education for any politicos and reporters who need it:

It’s also worth repeating that district judges have no power to veto national policies outside of granting relief to an individual plaintiff in his individual case or controversy. This is what distinguishes the judicial power from super-legislative and executive veto power that the judge-kings have grabbed for themselves.

It’s judicial tyranny, but it can be stopped. Congress needs to pass judicial reform and “deny lower courts such power over immigration and/or get rid of their ability to issue nationwide injunctions, a practice that has no foundation in our history.”

“Our Founders would never have tolerated lower court judges preventing the government from making laws to protect people from invaders,” Horowitz notes. According to founding father Roger Sherman, the Naturalization Act of 1790 gave Congress “the power of naturalization, in order to prevent particular States receiving citizens, and forcing them upon others who would not have received them in any other manner.”

Daniel Horowitz thus gives the simple steps to end judicial tyranny: Congress must act, but if in the meantime the Trump Administration needs to ignore “the sanctuary courts, then so be it.”

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